Huawei

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Lord that any leak from the National Security Council is a disgrace. Obviously it should not happen. On what is happening about that, I am not able to comment—and he would not expect me to—on any particular inquiry or investigation, but I can say that the Prime Minister takes leaks from the Government very seriously, particularly when they are to do with security. I will leave it at that.

As far as Huawei in particular is concerned, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. We must mitigate the risks where we can. We have an extensive oversight programme for Huawei—more extensive than for any other company. We have to face up to the fact that the risks come from not just the hardware but the software, and 5G in particular will mean that upgrades to software will be going through the networks the whole time. That is one of the areas we have to concentrate on and it does not come from a particular supplier of hardware.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I commend to the Minister the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee published in 2013, which sets out considerable reservations about the role of Huawei in the United Kingdom. I also support the point made by my noble friend Lord Paddick: it would be hardly in the national interest were we and the other members of the Five Eyes to be at odds on Huawei’s role. Finally, suppose the roles were reversed: can the Minister envisage circumstances in which the Chinese Government would give a similar contract to BT?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I cannot answer for the Chinese Government, but I am sure there are many examples where they have given contracts to UK industry. We must remember that potential IT and cybersecurity problems can come from not just IT manufacturers but industry as well. This is a problem for all Governments. I take the noble Lord’s point about the report he referred to. The review we are doing will take into account all those factors, but a lot has happened in the six years since it was published.

It is a much more nuanced picture across the Five Eyes. I think that Australia has the only de facto ban. The US has restricted Huawei from its federal agencies; it is not barred from US public networks. In this country as well, Huawei is already excluded from defence and security networks.